JONATHAN HARLEY: It may do, Tony, we've heard that from the Northern Alliance Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, but, indeed, intelligence -- reliable intelligence -- has been the scarcest commodity in this whole campaign.

It may to a degree, but always the fight for control of the south of Afghanistan was going to be the main game.

This certainly representing a brand new chapter, the biggest chapter yet in this 7-week-old campaign.

TONY JONES: It's a mobile, it's a well armed force.

It's got its own helicopters, its own attack jets.

Do we know yet whether its job will be purely and simply to track down those individuals, or could it be used for an assault on Kandahar?

JONATHAN HARLEY: No, it's not clear at all, Tony.

All we can go on really is the objective that we do know out of Washington.

The first being to wipe out the Taliban, the second to pursue Osama bin Laden.

Of course, there's the complicated network of caves in the south of Afghanistan.

This is a very remote and rugged terrain.

So perhaps we could assume that Kandahar will be the first objective but that's not end of the story, of course.

There still could be Osama bin Laden, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar outside in an area which is very difficult to locate anybody in.

TONY JONES: Jonathan, we're having a little trouble with our pictures at the moment, but we're managing to keep you there for the time being.

Is it clear whether this deployment has actually gone ahead with the agreement of the Northern Alliance, because we know that up till quite recently they were trying to stop foreign troops coming in?

JONATHAN HARLEY: That's right.

That was in the air strip of Bagram, not far from here, over behind me just to the north of Kabul.

Abdullah Abdullah recently said that they're not completely opposed, in principle, to foreign troops coming in, but that it would need to be in consultation with the Northern Alliance.

It's not clear to what degree that actually happened in this case, but certainly the south of Afghanistan is not the Northern Alliance's natural territory and it's not clear also whether these special forces, these marines, would be looking to use the Northern Alliance as a proxy force, as it has in the north, or be operating on its own accord.

TONY JONES: Right now there are no journalists, as I understand it, with these marines.

I take it some journalists will eventually go down and try to find out what is happening down there.

But there's no guarantee that they'll get anywhere near any of fighting, is there, at this stage?

JONATHAN HARLEY: None at all.

We saw a group of foreign journalists brought into a border town in Afghan territory, the border city of Spin Boldak last week, with the intention of the Taliban taking them to Kandahar, but they were then taken back into Pakistan because it was too dangerous.

And certainly the road from here to Kandahar from Kabul is very dangerous indeed.

It's controlled by a number of different warlords and tribal leaders.

Our pursuit of trying to explore whether it will be viable to get down to Kandahar found that it would be a very very dangerous route indeed.

Refugees have been streaming out of Kandahar, but they're heading mostly for Pakistan --

And really, there's no likelihood in the coming days of getting anywhere near the action.